#serviced to completion | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

12.7% of mobile users access Tumblr.

#serviced to completion

service4cops · 7 months

Text

"This guy had better be as good as the say he is."

He needn't have worried, I was better than he was expecting, intuitively sliding my tongue deep into the source of all his stress and tension, before velvet gloving him until he blasted his batter, balls deep, as I swallowed down all nine spurts of his sticky spew.

That's what you call service and that's what he's gonna get from me every time he stops by.

#wonder if he's any good #is he any good?#what does he do?#does he rim?#does he swallow?#first time #one his way over #in desperate need #balls needed draining #uk police #UK Cop #licked his arse #went down on him #serviced to completion #blasted in my mouth #massive load #multiple spurts #thick and creamy #swallowed it all

44 notes · View notes

periswirl · 5 months

Text

DP×DC Prompt

Love the idea of Danny being a horror movie child.

Like he somehow ends up with a non-supernatural DC family, be it the Kent's or the Batfam, and kind of just....is vaguely unsettling at first.

He stares into dark corners laughs at jokes only he hears. Tells random people things no one else should know.

And, used to weird, his new family let's it slide. Then they start seeing things. His shadow is bigger than it should be. Multiple eyes appear in the dark, watching them. Whispers fill the halls at night.

It's driving some crazy as they can SWEAR that when Danny gets mad they hear the screams of the damned.

Meanwhile Danny is chilling with his bodygaurd Fright Knight and is happy to have visits from his former rogues who make sure to check in on him as he's going through a rough patch in his life and, as a young ghost, is very susceptible to drastic changes.

#Theyre in two completely different genres #The new fam: horror mystery #danny: coming of age found family #like if its the batfam;#tim: theres SOMETHING HAPPENING. i havent slept in days #Duke: the shadows are alive and theyre Angry #Danny: :D wow im so happy to have friends who love and support me #Fright Knight: *unintelligible screams of horror* :] happy to be of service my lord #dc x dp #dp x dc #dpxdc #dcxdp #my post

2K notes · View notes

starrylevi · 9 months

Text

Obsessed with the idea that people forget you have Captain Levi’s heart until they see him do little things for you. Like at breakfast, before his morning meeting with Erwin, he’ll pass by your table and casually hand you a loaded plate. “They didn’t have those croissants you usually like but I found those weird ass pastries you can’t stop talking about.” And then he’ll just walk away without saying anything else. Or like, while you’re all suiting up for a mission, he’ll randomly walk up to you and adjust the thigh straps of your odm gear to make sure they’re properly secured and you’re just like “!!!” inside. Or like for every group meeting he arrives early and saves you the seat next to him and when you arrive, he’ll pull out your chair, waiting till you sit so he can briefly place his hand on your thigh as a greeting 🥰🥰🥰🥰

#OBSESSED #like it would be completely normal and second nature to him #he wouldn’t even realize until someone pointed it out and he would be like 🙄🙄🙄#our acts of service BABE I’m just so 😭😭😭#aot levi #levi Ackerman #levi attack on titan #levi hcs #levi headcanons #levi #levi x reader #levi x you #levi ackerman x reader #levi x y/n #levi ackerman x you #levi fluff #manda writes

5K notes · View notes

ew-selfish-art · 5 months

Text

DP x DC AU: Danny desperately wants to find the explosion guy. Tim is really good at covering his tracks... he didn't account for ghosts.

The explosions make it onto TV as purported terror activity and most people haven't heard of that part of the world much less ever given a second thought to care about it. The only real reason it gets reported on has something to do with the Justice League and... Danny knows too much.

He's been in training for Clockwork's court (which he's suspicious of- feels like kingly duty bullshit- but Danny is playing along out of curiosity for now) and he's learned a lot about how the living and non-living worlds collide. That means learning about CW's usual suspects- one of which just happened to have a ton of bases around the area Danny was seeing on the news.

It didn't take long for Danny to try to piece together that whoever blew up Nanda Parbat was trying to fuck with the League of Shadows, and was doing it successfully. Less green portals in the world the better, same goes for assassins. But it gets Danny thinking... Maybe he can employ similar tactics on the GIW Bases that keep spawning on the edges of Amity Park. It would at least set them back while he and his friends navigated the help line desk to request Justice League intervention. None of them can leave Amity Park, so outreach is going to have to be creative.

So Danny figures he'll just find the guy. Call up some ghosts who were there, or er, came from there and get a profile and track him down. But the ghosts keep saying it was The Detective. Annoying!

Danny goes full conspiracy theory, gets Tucker and Sam involved, and begrudgingly asks Wes Weston his thoughts.

He hadn't expected Wes to garble out a thirty minute presentation (that had 100 more slides left to go before he cut it off) about how Batman totally trained with a cult and so did his kids. Danny kind of rolled his eyes but... hey, new avenue of searching in the Infinite Realms at least.

The ghosts confirm that Bombs is for sure not Batman's MO- But maybe his second kid would know? The second kid was already brought back to life though, so no way to easily reach him... Danny starts to realize that this might be the work of a Robin now. Wasn't the red one known for solving cold cases? (Sam provides this information- its a social faux pas to not know hero gossip at Gotham Galas- everything she's learned is against her will).

It all comes to a head when Danny goes about the hard task of opening a portal for the guy to come through at just the right time, explain the infinite realms so he doesn't panic and then describe what the fuck was going on with the GIW. It takes months, just over a full year, of random (educated guesses) portal generating- Finally, Red Robin drops into the land of the dead.

"So, you're the guy I've got to talk to about explosions right?" Danny enthusiastically asks.

Tim thinks he's died and landed in the after life following 56 hours of being awake and plummeting off the side of a building into a Lazarus pool. Nothing makes sense about the kid in front of him.

"Yeah, I got a guy for munitions." Tim answers cooly.

"How do you feel about secretly sanctioned government operations that violate protected rights?"

"Gotta get rid of 'em some how. Need me to point you in the right direction?" This might as well be happening.

#dcxdp #dpxdc #dp x dc #dc x dp #danny phantom #long post #tim drake #red robin #tim and danny team up to blow up the GIW au #Tim being known as the explosion guy is my favorite and i will not let this part of his lore go ignored #Jason is the munitions guy obviously and the ghosts go crazy over the gossip it enlights when he helps in amity park #Danny one hundred percent is living for this working relationship- what a weirdo -danny hasn't met someone stranger than himself in a min #tim bartering his services for a few more years of life and danny just pikachu facing him #Tim wants to improve his relations in the afterlife be he still completely thinks hes dead #danny: dude ur still alive #Tim: yeah thats the goal but i'll help you meet your goals first and then we can negotiate #Danny decides to make the guy super ghost rich (thinking big Haunt real estate) and send him home #Tim blows up the GIW with no remorse and with all the data back up for proper justice to be served court side #tim returns from the dead and this is how the bats learn that he's the one who blew up nanda parbat all those years ago #it takes danny so long to find tim bc tim was spiralling and only after bruce got back did he get into a normal routine enough to get got

643 notes · View notes

bananonbinary · 10 months

Text

i feel like it's worth remembering that the most vulnerable people aren't just being "inconvenienced" by strikes. the only reason strikes work is because they grind an industry to a halt, and that genuinely can result in very dangerous situations for some people. the bystanders probably arent a huge issue with like the writers strike, but without say, UPS, a lot of people will not get medicine, food, and other essentials in time. and of course the workers themselves are sacrificing potentially everything to hold the line.

TO BE CLEAR, this is not the fault of the striking workers. the corporations could end this at any moment by choosing to be slightly less evil, and workers should not have to choose between endangering themselves constantly or endangering random strangers sometimes. but i feel like i see a lot of very flippant posts coming from a place of privilege where they're like "lol yeah i would love to be slightly inconvenienced all the time so people can be paid more, dont be a baby" as if strikes are a simple and easy solution, and not something people very bravely do, if not as a last resort, at least after exhausting the less dangerous options. fighting for our rights is not painless.

#just in general i see a lot of people like 'we should do away with [x thing disabled people rely on] to make things better for workers :)'#and its just so completely misguided #the solution is not to do away with these services it is to better compensate the workers #and hire more workers so no one is being overworked #and make sure they are safe with stuff like aircon #people really think if they dont use a service much it must not be important

1K notes · View notes

morganbritton132 · 11 months

Text

Someone asks in the comments of one of Eddie’s videos what Steve meant when he said that he was tortured. Eddie responds with a video of him running up to Steve like, “Hey, baby.”

Steve, smiling at Eddie: Hi, Ed.

Steve, frowning at the camera: Hello, Eddie’s internet friends

Eddie: People are gagging to know. How’d you get tortured at the mall?

Steve: It was customer service.

#Everybody who has ever had a customer service job: Makes complete sense #eddie munson tiktok saga #steve harrington #eddie munson

1K notes · View notes

hellishgayliath · 2 months

Text

Clem’s Log

Hi big brother. Today’s March 10th I think? I’m not so great at remembering dates but Papa was dead set on it because that’s your birthday, it’s amazing how he’s able to remember stuff like that after all this time.

I know it’s been a while since we talked, ever since you left I had to take over bird scout duties and just never had the time to sit down and write. Everyone’s been on edge. Y’know I still hold onto that jar of cinnamon sticks you gave me. Started chewing on them out of habit whenever the anxiety and dread was getting to my head. They taste just like home..

…

Um..

Papa told me he saw you again.

When he and a couple of the others were out on patrol with Mr. Leo and big sis Luci I mean COUSIN SERGEANT Luci haha, I think she’d resent me calling her that but I know she secretly adores me.

…

They said.. they said when they saw you you were.. already turned.

You knucklehead I guess that’s why you left in the first place but to leave without saying anything to anybody?! You know Uncle Mikey would’ve helped you like he did with the others that were infected. Or did you already know that it would’ve been pointless? Don’t you at least owe your own little sister a goodbye?! Dummy dum dumdum..

…

Papa thought he could somehow magically get through to you, y’know make you remember who you were before life went crazy.

I heard from Mr. Leo that Luci tried to stop Papa from acting like a idiot and getting himself killed. But she ended up getting hurt instead.

Bad.

…

Next thing Papa knew, you and Luci were on the ground, with only one of you moving. Judging by Mr. Leo’s face when I saw him come in, he looked very torn and distraught about a very tough call he had to make. I can already guess what it was he had to do. Cousin Luci is in rough shape but insists on rejecting any medical help saying it’d just be a waste of time and resources. Doesn’t she know we’re just trying to help her? The dumdum… Don’t tell her I called her that. I just don’t want to lose her too.

…

Papa said he could’ve sworn he saw a little smile on your face when he cradled you. Maybe that’s you finally realizing you’re not being controlled by those monsters anymore and can now be at peace knowing you can’t hurt anybody else. At least that’s how I see it. It must have been terrifying to go through that alone.

…

It’s not fair it’s not fair it’s not FAIR IT’S NOT FAIR

They said they couldn’t even bring your body back because of safety reasons and that it would put the base at risk of being tracked so I couldn’t even get to see you one last time!

I miss my big brother, I miss your dumb goofy smile, I miss us having bug eating competitions and laughing at you nearly choking on a beetle, I miss falling asleep on each other while watching tv, I miss seeing you chase after the raccoons with a broomstick whenever they raided our trash cans, I miss the dogs, I miss the taste of fresh fruit, I miss our HOME! I just want this nightmare to be done with. I’m just so.. tired..

…

Papa told me they at least gave him the chance to make a grave for you and to say his goodbyes. I should’ve been there with him saying them together.

He just looks so defeated and sad. I insisted to him that we at least put together a funeral service for you so the rest of us can say our peace.

…

It was nice.

Uncle Mikey and Bao combined their powers to transform the room into a beautiful recreation of a lush meadow full of butterflies and yellow daffodils while Mr. Tello played some lovely music he still had saved recorded in his tech. It was so tranquil it almost makes you forget for a second you’re in an apocalyptic hell scape.

I think you would've loved it.

…

Talk to you again soon and happy birthday you numbskull. I love you.

I miss you..

youtube

160 notes · View notes

technoturian · 6 months

Text

Been reading some takes on the emasculation of Jonathan and erasure of the suitors in adaptations because they draw focus away from Big Daddy Alpha Dracula and it just makes me feel a way... This is a book about Mina but it is also about men and these many very different ways to be a Good Man from Jonathan who is meek but kind and honest and true, Quincey who is reckless but loyal and brave, Seward who is melancholy and at times arrogant in his intellect but also absolutely determined to use his knowledge to help, heal and understand others...

And then you have Dracula, who is at his core a selfish monster, who preys on the weak, who abuses women and turns them into his slaves, who takes advantage of and subsequently discards the poor and ill.

Here we have a clear cut dichotomy between positive and toxic masculinity in full display, honestly STILL a timely story to be told over a century later. And yet everybody makes the story about sexy hot alpha male Dracula and then creates a half-baked good-bad dichotomy between the two women instead.

#Dracula #Dracula Daily #Dracula Spoilers #Stories #Meta #Dracula is over a hundred years old and we're STILL SEEING this focus on irredeemable villains and making them sexy and palatable #at the expense of the heroes #and then completely throw the women under the bus to further service their villain's narrative; make Lucy BAD and that's why he hurt her #and Mina is GOOD and that's why he loves her #it's all about him

229 notes · View notes

limplegsakimbo · 1 month

Note

you should give that loser some vienna sausuages, ima tellin ya. sorta like that shit food he already eats but all nutrients n shit. might taste like felty ass a little, not like ive tried myself.

most importantly theyre dirt cheap. im talking 99₵ in the canned meat aisle. 4 doughs for six

. its dirt bro

#in service of you i am most complete

55 notes · View notes

cult-of-the-eye · 4 months

Text

i should've KNOWN there'd be ships already and i'm fucking JOINING are we planning enemies to lovers for alice x gwen??? forced proximity???? a multi season slow burn???? trauma bonding???

#at your service #alice x gwen #what's the ship name?#dwyer?#tmagp #the magnus protocol #alice dyer #gwen bouchard #of course we chose the two complete opposite with one who sort of hates the other one #we can't escape the jmart script

85 notes · View notes

queenlucythevaliant · 3 months

Text

Tell Your Dad You Love Him

A retelling of "Meat Loves Salt"/"Cap O'Rushes" for the @inklings-challenge Four Loves event

An old king had three daughters. When his health began to fail, he summoned them, and they came.

Gordonia and Rowan were already waiting in the hallway when Coriander arrived. They were leaned up against the wall opposite the king’s office with an air of affected casualness. “I wonder what the old war horse wants today?” Rowan was saying. “More about next year’s political appointments, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“The older he gets, the more he micromanages,” Gordonia groused fondly. “A thousand dollars says this meeting could’ve been an email.”

They filed in single-file like they’d so often done as children: Gordonia first, then Rowan, and Coriander last of all. The king had placed three chairs in front of his desk all in a row. His daughters murmured their greetings, and one by one they sat down.

“I have divided everything I have in three,” the king said. “I am old now, and it’s time. Today, I will pass my kingdom on to you, my daughters.”

A short gasp came from Gordonia. None of them could have imagined that their father would give up running his kingdom while he still lived.

The king went on. “I know you will deal wisely with that which I leave in your care. But before we begin, I have one request.”

“Yes father?” said Rowan.

“Tell me how much you love me.”

An awkward silence fell. Although there was no shortage of love between the king and his daughters, theirs was not a family which spoke of such things. They were rich and blue-blooded: a soldier and the daughters of a soldier, a king and his three court-reared princesses. The royal family had always shown their affection through double meanings and hot cups of coffee.

Gordonia recovered herself first. She leaned forward over the desk and clasped her father’s hands in her own. “Father,” she said, “I love you more than I can say.” A pause. “I don’t think there’s ever been a family so happy in love as we have been. You’re a good dad.”

The old king smiled and patted her hand. “Thank you, Gordonia. We have been very happy, haven’t we? Here is your inheritance. Cherish it, as I cherish you.”

Rowan spoke next; the words came tumbling out. “Father! There’s not a thing in my life which you didn’t give me, and all the joy in the world beside. Come now, Gordonia, there’s no need to understate the matter. I love you more than—why, more than life itself!”

The king laughed, and rose to embrace his second daughter. “How you delight me, Rowan. All of this will be yours.”

Only Coriander remained. As her sisters had spoken, she’d wrung her hands in her lap, unsure of what to say. Did her father really mean for flattery to be the price of her inheritance? That just wasn’t like him. For all that he was a politician, he’d been a soldier first. He liked it when people told the truth.

When the king’s eyes came to rest on her, Coriander raised her own to meet them. “Do you really want to hear what you already know?”

“I do.”

She searched for a metaphor that could carry the weight of her love without unnecessary adornment. At last she found one, and nodded, satisfied. “Dad, you’re like—like salt in my food.”

“Like salt?”

“Well—yes.”

The king’s broad shoulders seemed to droop. For a moment, Coriander almost took back her words. Her father was the strongest man in the world, even now, at eighty. She’d watched him argue with foreign rulers and wage wars all her life. Nothing could hurt him. Could he really be upset?

But no. Coriander held her father’s gaze. She had spoken true. What harm could be in that?

“I don’t know why you’re even here, Cor,” her father said.

Now, Coriander shifted slightly in her seat, unnerved. “What? Father—”

“It would be best if—you should go,” said the old king.

“Father, you can’t really mean–”

“Leave us, Coriander.”

So she left the king’s court that very hour.

It had been a long time since she’d gone anywhere without a chauffeur to drive her, but Coriander’s thoughts were flying apart too fast for her to be afraid. She didn’t know where she would go, but she would make do, and maybe someday her father would puzzle out her metaphor and call her home to him. Coriander had to hope for that, at least. The loss of her inheritance didn’t feel real yet, but her father—how could he not know that she loved him? She’d said it every day.

She’d played in the hall outside that same office as a child. She’d told him her secrets and her fears and sent him pictures on random Tuesdays when they were in different cities just because. She had watched him triumph in conference rooms and on the battlefield and she’d wanted so badly to be like him.

If her father doubted her love, then maybe he’d never noticed any of it. Maybe the love had been an unnoticed phantasm, a shadow, a song sung to a deaf man. Maybe all that love had been nothing at all.

A storm was on the horizon, and it reached her just as she made it onto the highway. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled. Rain poured down and flooded the road. Before long, Coriander was hydroplaning. Frantically, she tried to remember what you were supposed to do when that happened. Pump the brakes? She tried. No use. Wasn’t there something different you did if the car had antilock brakes? Or was that for snow? What else, what else–

With a sickening crunch, her car hit the guardrail. No matter. Coriander’s thoughts were all frenzied and distant. She climbed out of the car and just started walking.

Coriander wandered beneath an angry sky on the great white plains of her father’s kingdom. The rain beat down hard, and within seconds she was soaked to the skin. The storm buffeted her long hair around her head. It tangled together into long, matted cords that hung limp down her back. Mud soiled her fine dress and splattered onto her face and hands. There was water in her lungs and it hurt to breathe. Oh, let me die here, Coriander thought. There’s nothing left for me, nothing at all. She kept walking.

When she opened her eyes, Coriander found herself in a dank gray loft. She was lying on a strange feather mattress.

She remained there a while, looking up at the rafters and wondering where she could be. She thought and felt, as it seemed, through a heavy and impenetrable mist; she was aware only of hunger and weakness and a dreadful chill (though she was all wrapped in blankets). She knew that a long time must have passed since she was fully aware, though she had a confused memory of wandering beside the highway in a thunderstorm, slowly going mad because—because— oh, there’d been something terrible in her dreams. Her father, shoulders drooping at his desk, and her sisters happily come into their inheritance, and she cast into exile—

She shuddered and sat up dizzily. “Oh, mercy,” she murmured. She hadn’t been dreaming.

She stumbled out of the loft down a narrow flight of stairs and came into a strange little room with a single window and a few shabby chairs. Still clinging to the rail, she heard a ruckus from nearby and then footsteps. A plump woman came running to her from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and softly clucking at the state of her guest’s matted, tangled hair.

“Dear, dear,” said the woman. “Here’s my hand, if you’re still unsteady. That’s good, good. Don’t be afraid, child. I’m Katherine, and my husband is Folke. He found you collapsed by the goose-pond night before last. I’m she who dressed you—your fine gown was ruined, I’m afraid. Would you like some breakfast? There’s coffee on the counter, and we’ll have porridge in a minute if you’re patient.”

“Thank you,” Coriander rasped.

“Will you tell me your name, my dear?”

“I have no name. There’s nothing to tell.”

Katherine clicked her tongue. “That’s alright, no need to worry. Folke and I’ve been calling you Rush on account of your poor hair. I don’t know if you’ve seen yourself, but it looks a lot like river rushes. No, don’t get up. Here’s your breakfast, dear.��

There was indeed porridge, as Katherine had promised, served with cream and berries from the garden. Coriander ate hungrily and tasted very little. Then, when she was finished, the goodwife ushered her over to a sofa by the window and put a pillow beneath her head. Coriander thanked her, and promptly fell asleep.

She woke again around noon, with the pounding in her head much subsided. She woke feeling herself again, to visions of her father inches away and the sound of his voice cracking across her name.

Katherine was outside in the garden; Coriander could see her through the clouded window above her. She rose and, upon finding herself still in a borrowed nightgown, wrapped herself in a blanket to venture outside.

“Feeling better?” Katherine was kneeling in a patch of lavender, but she half rose when she heard the cottage door open.

“Much. Thank you, ma’am.

“No thanks necessary. Folke and I are ministers, of a kind. We keep this cottage for lost and wandering souls. You’re free to remain here with us for as long as you need.”

“Oh,” was all Coriander could think to say.

“You’ve been through a tempest, haven’t you? Are you well enough to tell me where you came from?”

Coriander shifted uncomfortably. “I’m from nowhere,” she said. “I have nothing.”

“You don’t owe me your story, child. I should like to hear it, but it will keep till you’re ready. Now, why don’t you put on some proper clothes and come help me with this weeding.”

Coriander remained at the cottage with Katherine and her husband Folke for a week, then a fortnight. She slept in the loft and rose with the sun to help Folke herd the geese to the pond. After, Coriander would return and see what needed doing around the cottage. She liked helping Katherine in the garden.

The grass turned gold and the geese’s thick winter down began to come in. Coriander’s river-rush hair proved itself unsalvageable. She spent hours trying to untangle it, first with a hairbrush, then with a fine-tooth comb and a bottle of conditioner, and eventually even with honey and olive oil (a home remedy that Folke said his mother used to use). So, at last, Coriander surrendered to the inevitable and gave Katherine permission to cut it off. One night, by the yellow light of the bare bulb that hung over the kitchen table, Katherine draped a towel over Coriander’s shoulders and tufts of gold went falling to the floor all round her.

“I’m here because I failed at love,” she managed to tell the couple at last, when her sorrows began to feel more distant. “I loved my father, and he knew it not.”

Folke and Katherine still called her Rush. She didn’t correct them. Coriander was the name her parents gave her. It was the name her father had called her when she was six and racing down the stairs to meet him when he came home from Europe, and at ten when she showed him the new song she’d learned to play on the harp. She’d been Cor when she brought her first boyfriend home and Cori the first time she shadowed him at court. Coriander, Coriander, when she came home from college the first time and he’d hugged her with bruising strength. Her strong, powerful father.

As she seasoned a pot of soup for supper, she wondered if he understood yet what she’d meant when she called him salt in her food.

Coriander had been living with Katherine and Folke for two years, and it was a morning just like any other. She was in the kitchen brewing a pot of coffee when Folke tossed the newspaper on the table and started rummaging in the fridge for his orange juice. “Looks like the old king’s sick again,” he commented casually. Coriander froze.

She raced to the table and seized hold of the paper. There, above the fold, big black letters said, KING ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL FOR EMERGENCY TREATMENT. There was a picture of her father, looking older than she’d ever seen him. Her knees went wobbly and then suddenly the room was sideways.

Strong arms caught her and hauled her upright. “What’s wrong, Rush?”

“What if he dies,” she choked out. “What if he dies and I never got to tell him?”

She looked up into Folke’s puzzled face, and then the whole sorry story came tumbling out.

When she was through, Katherine (who had come downstairs sometime between salt and the storm) took hold of her hand and kissed it. “Bless you, dear,” she said. “I never would have guessed. Maybe it’s best that you’ve both had some time to think things over.”

Katherine shook her head. “But don’t you think…?”

“Yes?”

“Well, don’t you think he should have known that I loved him? I shouldn’t have needed to say it. He’s my father. He’s the king.”

Katherine replied briskly, as though the answer should have been obvious. “He’s only human, child, for all that he might wear a crown; he’s not omniscient. Why didn’t you tell your father what he wanted to hear?”

“I didn’t want to flatter him,” said Coriander. “That was all. I wanted to be right in what I said.”

The goodwife clucked softly. “Oh dear. Don’t you know that sometimes, it’s more important to be kind than to be right?”

In her leave-taking, Coriander tried to tell Katherine and Folke how grateful she was to them, but they wouldn’t let her. They bought her a bus ticket and sent her on her way towards King’s City with plenty of provisions. Two days later, Coriander stood on the back steps of one of the palace outbuildings with her little carpetbag clutched in her hands.

Stuffing down the fear of being recognized, Coriander squared her shoulders and hoped they looked as strong as her father’s. She rapped on the door, and presently a maid came and opened it. The maid glanced Coriander up and down, but after a moment it was clear that her disguise held. With all her long hair shorn off, she must have looked like any other girl come in off the street.

“I’m here about a job,” said Coriander. “My name’s Rush.”

The king's chambers were half-lit when Coriander brought him his supper, dressed in her servants’ apparel. He grunted when she knocked and gestured with a cane towards his bedside table. His hair was snow-white and he was sitting in bed with his work spread across a lap-desk. His motions were very slow.

Coriander wanted to cry, seeing her father like that. Yet somehow, she managed to school her face. Like he would, she kept telling herself. Stoically, she put down the supper tray, then stepped back out into the hallway.

It was several minutes more before the king was ready to eat. Coriander heard papers being shuffled, probably filed in those same manilla folders her father had always used. In the hall, Coriander felt the seconds lengthen. She steeled herself for the moment she knew was coming, when the king would call out in irritation, “Girl! What's the matter with my food? Why hasn’t it got any taste?”

When that moment came, all would be made right. Coriander would go into the room and taste his food. “Why,” she would say, with a look of complete innocence, “It seems the kitchen forgot to salt it!” She imagined how her father’s face would change when he finally understood. My daughter always loved me, he would say.

Soon, soon. It would happen soon. Any second now.

The moment never came. Instead, the floor creaked, followed by the rough sound of a cane striking the floor. The door opened, and then the king was there, his mighty shoulders shaking. “Coriander,” he whispered.

“Dad. You know me?”

“Of course.”

“Then you understand now?”

The king’s wrinkled brow knit. “Understand about the salt? Of course, I do. It wasn't such a clever riddle. There was surely no need to ruin my supper with a demonstration.”

Coriander gaped at him. She'd expected questions, explanations, maybe apologies for sending her away. She'd never imagined this.

She wanted very badly to seize her father and demand answers, but then she looked, really looked, at the way he was leaning on his cane. The king was barely upright; his white head was bent low. Her questions would hold until she'd helped her father back into his room.

“If you knew what I meant–by saying you were like salt in my food– then why did you tell me to go?” she asked once they were situated back in the royal quarters.

Idly, the king picked at his unseasoned food. “I shouldn’t have done that. Forgive me, Coriander. My anger and hurt got the better of me, and it has brought me much grief. I never expected you to stay away for so long.”

Coriander nodded slowly. Her father's words had always carried such fierce authority. She'd never thought to question if he really meant what he’d said to her.

“As for the salt,” continued the king, "Is it so wrong that an old man should want to hear his daughters say ‘I love you' before he dies?”

Coriander rolled the words around in her head, trying to make sense of them. Then, with a sudden mewling sound from her throat, she managed to say, “That's really all you wanted?”

“That's all. I am old, Cor, and we've spoken too little of love in our house.” He took another bite of his unsalted supper. His hand shook. “That was my failing, I suppose. Perhaps if I’d said it, you girls would have thought to say it back.”

“But father!” gasped Coriander, “That’s not right. We've always known we loved one another! We've shown it a thousand ways. Why, I've spent the last year cataloging them in my head, and I've still not even scratched the surface!”

The king sighed. “Perhaps you will understand when your time comes. I knew, and yet I didn't. What can you really call a thing you’ve never named? How do you know it exists? Perhaps all the love I thought I knew was only a figment.”

“But that’s what I’ve been afraid of all this time,” Coriander bit back. “How could you doubt? If it was real at all– how could you doubt?”

The king’s weathered face grew still. His eyes fell shut and he squeezed them. “Death is close to me, child. A small measure of reassurance is not so very much to ask.”

Coriander slept in her old rooms that night. None of it had changed. When she woke the next morning, for a moment she remembered nothing of the last two years.

She breakfasted in the garden with her father, who came down the steps in a chair-lift. “Coriander,” he murmured. “I half-thought I dreamed you last night.”

“I’m here, Dad,” she replied. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Slowly, the king reached out with one withered hand and caressed Coriander's cheek. Then, his fingers drifted up to what remained of her hair. He ruffled it, then gently tugged on a tuft the way he'd used to playfully tug her long braid when she was a girl.

“I love you,” he said.

“That was always an I love you, wasn’t it?” replied Coriander. “My hair.”

The king nodded. “Yes, I think it was.”

So Coriander reached out and gently tugged the white hairs of his beard. “You too,” she whispered.

“Why salt?” The king was sitting by the fire in his rooms wrapped in two blankets. Coriander was with him, enduring the sweltering heat of the room without complaint.

She frowned. “You like honesty. We have that in common. I was trying to be honest–accurate–to avoid false flattery.”

The king tugged at the outer blanket, saying nothing. His lips thinned and his eyes dropped to his lap. Coriander wished they wouldn’t. She wished they would hold to hers, steely and ready for combat as they always used to be.

“Would it really have been false?” the king said at last. “Was there no other honest way to say it? Only salt?”

Coriander wanted to deny it, to give speech to the depth and breadth of her love, but once again words failed her. “It was my fault,” she said. “I didn’t know how to heave my heart into my throat.” She still didn’t, for all she wanted to.

When the doctor left, the king was almost too tired to talk. His words came slowly, slurred at the edges and disconnected, like drops of water from a leaky faucet.

Still, Coriander could tell that he had something to say. She waited patiently as his lips and tongue struggled to form the words. “Love you… so… much… You… and… your sisters… Don’t… worry… if you… can’t…say…how…much. I… know.”

It was all effort. The king sat back when he was finished. Something was still spasming in his throat, and Coriander wanted to cry.

“I’m glad you know,” she said. “I’m glad. But I still want to tell you.”

Love was effort. If her father wanted words, she would give him words. True words. Kind words. She would try…

“I love you like salt in my food. You're desperately important to me, and you've always been there, and I don't know what I'll do without you. I don’t want to lose you. And I love you like the soil in a garden. Like rain in the spring. Like a hero. You have the strongest shoulders of anyone I know, and all I ever wanted was to be like you…”

A warm smile spread across the old king’s face. His eyes drifted shut.

#inklingschallenge #theme: storge #story: complete #inklings challenge #leah stories #OKAY. SO #i spend so much time thinking about king lear. i think i've said before that it's my favorite shakespeare play. it is not close #and one of the hills i will die on is that cordelia was not in the right when she refused to flatter her dad #like. obviously he's definitely not in the right either. the love test was a screwed up way to make sure his kids loved him #he shouldn't have tied their inheritances into it. he DEFINITELY shouldn't have kicked cordelia out when she refused to play #but like. Cordelia. there is no good reason not to tell your elderly dad how much you love him #and okay obviously lear is my starting point but the same applies to the meat loves salt princess #your dad wants you to tell him you love him. there is no good reason to turn it into a riddle. you had other options #and honestly it kinda bothers me when people read cordelia/the princess as though she's perfectly virtuous #she's very human and definitely beats out the cruel sisters but she's definitely not aspirational. she's not to be emulated #at the end of the day both the fairytale and the play are about failures in storge #at happens when it's there and you can't tell. when it's not and you think it is. when you think you know someone's heart and you just don'#hey! that's a thing that happens all the time between parents and children. especially loving past each other and speaking different langua #so the challenge i set myself with this story was: can i retell the fairytale in such a way that the princess is unambiguously in the wrong #and in service of that the king has to get softened so his errors don't overshadow hers #anyway. thank you for coming to my TED talk #i've been thinking about this story since the challenge was announced but i wrote the whole thing last night after the super bowl #got it in under the wire! yay!#also! the whole 'modern setting that conflicts with the fairytale language' is supposed to be in the style of modern shakespeare adaptation #no idea if it worked but i had a lot of fun with it #pontifications and creations

68 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

shippertrash37

Mia

supermariobroshd

[Cuevana 3]!* VER (Online) Super Mario Bros: La Película Pelicu

quetontaama

Untitled

apearu

Apearu

kirilltisha

Kirill and Tisha